The Body Of Christopher Creed, My Body
by thegoodmorrow
Summary: A 3 part piece in which Christopher Creed contemplates his life before, during and after his departure from Steepleton. Told using songs by Switchfoot, The Postal Service and Dallas Green. Hi Mr. Cunningham!
1. I Dare You To Move

I Dare You To Move

**A/N:** Hi everybody! Today I have strayed from my_ floridfeyfay _account to bring you this! This is a three-chapter piece based on the novel **"The Body Of Christopher Creed"** by Carol Plum-Ucci. Hi Mr. Cunningham! This first chapter is based on the song "I Dare You To Move" by Switchfoot and describes Chris' need to move, to pick himself up off the floor and start a new life, a life in which he can be truly happy.

**Disclaimer:** I do not presume to own "The Body Of Christopher Creed" nor the song "I Dare You To Move". I will in no way profit from their use. Please don't sue!

I Dare You To Move

_Welcome to the planet_

I know I can't stay here anymore. I know I have to leave, have to flee this hell.

_Welcome to existence_

There's nothing left for me here. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

_Everyone's here_

_Everyone's here_

I know people will wonder where I am. I know they'll try to find me, but, but, I don't want to be found. Not yet anyway. They've been looking through me my entire life, but once I leave they'll be looking for me. Maybe if I leave, they'll finally see me.

_Everybody's watching you now_

_Everybody waits for you now_

They all know it's just a matter of time before I crack. They're all waiting for me to kill myself.

_What happens next?_

_What happens next?_

But I won't give them what they want. I am me, a human being just like them. Why should I take my life based on the sins they have committed? It's over. I've had enough.

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_Like today never happened_

_Today never happened before_

I'll start a new life. Christopher Michael Creed will cease to exist. I'll create for myself a new name, a new identity, a new life. Nothing from before will matter anymore, the pain, the humiliation, the constant torment. Nothing will have been before this moment. I shall be free of the past that has haunted me for so long. I'll leave nothing behind and retain memories of only one person.

_Welcome to the fallout_

_Welcome to resistance_

I'm scared though, so scared. Where will I go? What will I do? I have no one to take me in, no one who loves me.

_The tension is here_

_The tension is here_

I can't leave! What was I thinking? Even if I move and change my name, create a new identity; I'll still be the same person. I'll still be the annoying little prat everyone hates.

_Between who you are and who you could be_

Yet, maybe they're right. Maybe if I stay, they will break me, and I'll have no escape from this pain but the idea of an everlasting paradise awaiting me beyond the grave. If I stay, there will only be pain and suffering, and ultimately death. No one out there loves me, but no one in here loves me either.

_Between how it is and how it should be_

I can not, will not stay here to rot in this prison, this supposed sanctuary. The stench of corpses rotting away beneath the floorboards of the church fills my nostrils. Just how their lies will eventually decay beneath them, and eventually only the truth will remain, for all to see.

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_Like today never happened_

_Today never happened_

I know now where I'll go. The road will be long and difficult, and I will have only my willpower and desperate need for freedom to carry me along the way, but I will make it. I will get there and start to live again.

_Maybe redemption has stories to tell_

I will experience the world. Taste sweet pomegranate juice upon my tongue, smell the bitter aroma of a crowded market, feel the milky smooth skin of a lover's neck.

_Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell_

I know I shall be hated and loathed and tortured for what I have done. I know the only way I will ever be free of the guilt I will feel at the abandonment of my siblings is to return to Steepleton, some day far from now. I will share with them my adventures of the world, in hopes that one day they will forgive me for leaving them and that they will set out on their own journeys of self discovery.

_Where can you run to escape from yourself?_

I guess, that in a sick, twisted way, I'm running from myself. I may say that I am running from others, from their lies and misdeeds, but the truth, which I am apparently so desperately searching for, is that I am running from myself just as much as them. I've twisted my reality so much, I can't understand what is real and what is not. I've spun a tangled web of lies and fantasy, and I find myself kicking and thrashing.

_Where you gonna go?_

So now I'm going to run. Seems like a cowards way out doesn't it? Find yourself in a spot of trouble, and you take off. But it's not like that.

_Where you gonna go?_

I just need time to think, to understand things. What I've done, what others have done, what this life is for.

_Salvation is here_

I know that once I've figured it all out, I will return to Steepleton, and there, I will find a sanctuary within myself.

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to lift yourself_

_Lift yourself up off the floor_

_I dare you to move_

_I dare you to move_

_Like today never happened_

_Today never happened_

_Today never happened_

_Today never happened before_

"Everyone wishes I were gone, so, therefore, I AM."


	2. This Place Is A Prison

This Place Is A Prison

by 

The Postal Service

**A/N: **Please enjoy the second installment in this trilogy. Hi Mr. Cunningham!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own "The Body of Christopher Creed" by Carol Plum-Ucci. Nor do I own "This Place Is A Prison" by The Postal Service. Don't sue!

This Place Is A Prison 

_This place is a prison_

I feel so trapped, so engulfed. The music is thumping through my veins at 100 miles per hour and I feel as though my heart will burst at any moment. The cheap perfume of the slut next to me is stuffing my nostrils and suffocating me slowly with the smell of vanilla and alcohol. The flashing lights distort my vision and I swear fairies are dancing in my eyes.

_And these people aren't your friends_

Raucous laughter pounds against my ears and I feel nauseous. The very sight of these people makes me sick. With their trendy clothes and hair extensions, I can't help but notice the white powder dusting their upper lips. I glance at the movie star across from me and can't help but shudder. She looks just like her. The endless eyes, the dusting of freckles across her cheeks and breasts.

_Inhaling thrills through $20 bills_

I can't remember, and I don't want to forget. I breathe deeply and feel my body relax. Before I know it, the tears are streaming down my face and I can feel her fingertips dancing up my forearm. I look up and she smiles down at me. Her skin is hot and clammy to the touch, so different from Megs. Her lips are feather light against my temples and I am lost in her neck. I begged Meg. I begged her to run away with me, to find a new life together and flourish in our love, but she refused and now I'm emptying my loneliness into Genevieve's sticky, open mouth.

_And the tumblers are drained and then flooded again_

We made love last night, and all I could see were Megs curls splayed out beneath me.

_And again_

Genevieve's hands encircle my waist as I ask myself how this happened. How did it get like this? Sitting in the dark club, faking my happiness to those around me, to myself. The rotten smell of cigarettes makes me cough and wretch, and yet I smoke them every night. Just as the taste of Genevieve makes me gag, I bed her just as often. Even when I would rather make love to Meg just once more in my life than bed Genevieve every day for eternity.

_There are guards at the on ramps armed to be teeth_

I ran from Steepleton to escape my lies, not to immerse myself in fresh ones that threatened to choke the life out of me. I was trapped, caught up in my web of false reality. I was tired, so tired. Just as they had in Steepleton, my lies had finally caught up to me and I knew that soon I would be cornered by them with no way out. I couldn't stay here any longer.

_And you may case the grounds from the Cascades to Puget Sound_

_But you are not permitted to leave_

I was trapped in a never-ending cycle it seemed. Change locations, give myself a new idenity, start a new life, only to be caught up in the same reoccurring lie each time. I had led myself into a life of fantasy and illusion, one it seemed I would never be able to escape.

_I know there's a big world out there like the one I saw on the screen_

_In my living room late last night_

_It was almost too bright to see_

As the world around me surrendered to the pulsing beat of the music and Technicolor daydreams surrounding me I found myself clutching helplessly to her soft, supple dress as her hands flickered to the nape of my neck. For as much as I wanted to, I couldn't let go. I was happy in my fantasy, or was so in that moment as my mind gave a violent jump and my hands were threading through Megs charcoal curls. Then just as soon as it had come, it was gone, and Genevieve was the one pressed hotly against me. My lips trailed her clavicle as I hoped that the taste of her flesh would revive my love for her. Last night, as her naked form lay tucked against mine, my eyes had flickered to the luminescent screen suspended above us. It was an image of a far distant land; one I knew I had dreamt of as a boy, one I had wished to see when I had left my home. What had become of my dream? I had been gone for five years, and had accomplished nothing, nothing but the loss of my innocence and the slow deterioration of my mind.

_And I know that it's not a party if it happens every night_

_Pretending there's glamour and candelabra_

_When you're drinking by candlelight_

This wasn't the miraculous life I had dreamt of. This was a gilded, flashy prison that had drawn me in with its spinning lights and promises of pleasure, the sweet promise of hallucinations, and the dreams of a woman's luminescent spine.

_What does it take to get a drink in this place?_

Swirling white fog claws at my throat as it trickles from the glass. The lights blur and swim in and out of my eyes. Tears prick at my pupils and a sob escapes from my dry, clenched mouth.

_What does it take, how long must I wait?_

The small black drop of happiness dissolves on my tongue and I am flying away from this madness. Higher and higher I soar, my pulse is racing and my tongue is trembling. Sticky sweet skin is pressed against my own and I am falling, plunging into a mass of tangled black curls and phosphorescent skin.


End file.
